1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cotton harvesters and, more specifically, to an improved row unit and cotton delivery system for a cotton stripper.
2) Related Art
Presently available cotton strippers such as the John Deere Model 7445 Cotton Stripper include individual row units supported forwardly of a cross-auger frame. Cotton along with cotton stalks and other debris is swept from the row-receiving area by a pair of brush rolls supported on either side of the row of cotton and angling upwardly in the rearward direction. An auger supported above a rounded auger housing outwardly of each of the brush rolls conveys the material rearwardly to the cross auger. The row unit auger shafts are gear driven, and the axes of the brush roll shafts run at an angle to the axes of the auger shafts. The angled shafts cause point contact on the gear teeth and increased noise and wear. With as many as six units running simultaneously, the noise level can be relatively high.
The row unit width in conventional strippers approaches the minimum row spacing in narrow row cotton so that access to the units for servicing is limited. Providing a narrow stripper unit which still has good picking efficiency and minimal cotton loss has been a continuing source of difficulty.
A cut-off member which runs generally parallel to the brush roll and is located between the brush roll and the corresponding auger has a top portion which extends above the axis of the brush roll. This cut-off is necessary to help direct cotton away from the brush roll and into the auger. However, cotton sometimes stays with the brush roll or is thrown in a direction other than toward the auger, and, as a result, cotton conveying and stalk breakage in the auger are much less than optimal. Often, stalks fail to get broken up between the auger and the housing. When not broken up or removed by the row unit, such debris is a source of blockage of the cotton path.
The typical stripper row unit housing which encloses the brush rolls and auger has a flat top, and loose cotton can bounce off the top and be lost as the plants enter the row-receiving area. In tall cotton, the upper part of the cotton plant bunches up at upper areas of the stripper brush rolls, and as a result, stripping efficiency is reduced.
Separating trash and dense green bolls that are swept into the cotton conveying system by the stripper rolls is necessary for good productivity. A typical method for removing green bolls and other dense material is to allow them to fall to the bottom of the main vertical conveying duct and unto the ground or into a green boll box mounted on the harvester. The standard cotton stripper air system, with an upwardly directed air jet about a third of the way up in the back wall of the main conveying duct, causes a suction that lifts fluffy ripe cotton from the cross auger discharge area toward the jet and then blows ripe cotton upwardly and rearwardly while the denser green bolls drop. One problem with this boll separation approach has been the requirement for a powerful air jet to assure that all ripe cotton will be sucked up from the auger toward the jet, even in high yielding cotton. Often the green bolls are surrounded by and swept up with a mass of ripe cotton and do not get separated. In addition, the air jet is so powerful that cotton and trash can get pushed against the separating grates at the top of the duct to cause a blockage or render the grates useless for separating trash.